Brian Molko (Placebo)
Brian Molko, vocalist and guitarist for alt-art-rock band Placebo, is known for his cutting guitar tone and bizarre tunings. Listening to some Placebo tracks you’d be forgiven for guessing that his guitar signal went through a gargantuan rack setup, but this is not the case.
Molko uses a range of guitars, but is more often than not seen with either a Gibson SG, Fender Jaguar and more recently Gretsch Duo Jets.
During the “Without you I’m nothing” era, Molko favoured Pre CBS Fender Jaguars, tuned (low to high) F, Bb, Eb, G#, C , C, as well as other non-standard tunings.
A Fender Jaguar was on the track, Pure Morning, for example, whilst Gibson SGs were used on the other big name single from the ‘Without You I’m Nothing’ album, Every You Every Me.
For “In Sleeping With Ghosts” a Fender Thinline Telecaster was also used occasionally.
Gretsch Duo Jets began making appearance during the “Meds” era, most notably on the track, Special K.
Throughout his career the Fender Twin Reverb amplifier has been a main stay. Molko was also said to have used the Marshall 6100LM Anniversary model head during the “Without you I’m nothing” era, primarily for the distorted tones. More recently the 6100LM seems to have been replaced with a Marshall JCM900 fitted with 5881 power tubes.
His pedal board has under gone a few changes across albums. During the “Without you I’m nothing” era, his live pedal board consisted of a Sovtek Big Muff (Green Russian version), Boss DD-3 Digital Delay, Boss TU-12 Tuner and Boss PSM-5 Power Supply and Master Switch.
In an August 1999 interview with Alternative Press, Molko was asked him about his [then] current guitar setup:
I’ve got three Fender Jaguars, one Fender Jazz master and two Gibson SG’s, and they’re all older than me. That’s very important. The Jags are all women, and they all have names: “Bitch,” “Goddess” and “Tattoo”. For amps I use a Marshall stack and a Fender Twin to get a fuller, richer sound. My effects setup is simple: Boss delay and Roger Mayer Voodoo Distortion; and I use the built-in overdrive on the Marshall. Occasionally our sound guy will put a Leslie [rotary speaker] effect or a big My Bloody Valentine kind of reverb effect on my guitar.
In an April 1999 interview with Guitar Player magazine Molko talked about some of the gear used in the studio.
The band also uses effects processors like makeup — bending the gender of their guitars so you’re sometimes not sure whether it’s a guitar or a keyboard you’re hearing. On Without You I’m Nothing (Virgin), Placebo dolled up their guitar tones with a Pro Co RAT, Mutron flanger, Alesis Quadraverb, Boss DD-5 Digital Delay, Roger Mayer distortion, and a Sovtek Big Muff. They also used a Sherman Filterbank for the synthetic-sounding feedback on
‘Every You, Every Me’, an Eventide H3500 preset called Cool Prez for the watery opening guitar on ‘You Don’t Care About Us,’ and a Lovetone Big Cheese, to give songs a “real hyper-chaotic exploding speaker sound.”
More recently, Molko has been seen with the following pedals on his board (from right to left):
- Boss TU-2 Tuner
- MXR Phase 90
- MXR Distortion +
- Electro-Harmonix Hot Tubes
- Electro-Harmonix English Muff’n
- Boss DD-5 Digital Delay
- Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail
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